Independent review

Independent review

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) is undergoing an independent review – as required by legislation – and interested stakeholders are invited to assist the Review team with submissions.

Purpose of the review

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman is committed to ensuring that it continues to work effectively to meet the needs of consumers, its members and the telecommunications industry as a whole.

In 2014, the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 was amended to include section 133A, which requires an independent review of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Scheme to be conducted every five years, with the first review to take place this year.

The legislation requires the review to:

be conducted by a person who is independent of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and the telecommunications industry

include public consultation as well as consultation with the ACMA and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman

be given to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman who must give a copy to the Minister and publish the report on the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s website.

Process

Melbourne-based consultancy cameron. ralph. khoury has been engaged to conduct the review.

The review will involve a public consultation and invite submissions from a range of stakeholders, including consumers, regulators and industry.

As part of our independent review of the TIO, we published a brief Issues Paper and invited interested stakeholders to provide written submissions. The date for submissions has closed and we received 22 submissions from industry, consumer advocates, regulators, and individual consumers. In the interests of an open, transparent review, we are publishing most of the submissions. We have not yet checked or verified the information in the submissions.

We have not published six submissions:

· Four submissions included specific details on particular experiences at the TIO, including personal information. These submissions will be considered in our review; however we made the judgment that they should not be published

· Two submitters requested confidentiality.

Our Report, which will take into account a broad range of information (including the submissions), is due to be provided to the Ombudsman by 29 August 2017.